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Khrust Bakery, San Luis Obispo, CA (2026)

12/04/2025

When I was a boy, just a few years shy of a teenager, I remember walking along a busy road on a haggard sidewalk. Worn, torn concrete with sparse patches of grass. A cyclist, a girl who wasn't that much older, dashed by. She screamed and hurled at me, "GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY."

Years later, I would. Kind of. During my middle school summer break, my family and I visited Cambodia, my parents' home country. Accompanied by our relatives, we drove a pickup truck to Phnom Kulen, the birthplace of the ancient Khmer Empire. However, we were abruptly stopped by checkpoint officers. One peered through the rear passenger window and spotted my brother and I; two boys who stood out from the locals, wearing baggy t-shirts, blue jeans, with mid-length hair.

A stern voice spoke in Khmer. "Foreigners must pay to enter."

Convinced it was a misunderstanding, my family explained to them that we weren't foreigners. Our parents are Cambodian. And that makes us Cambodian, right? Half an hour passes by. The checkpoint officers still disapproved. They demanded to see our passports and birth certificates, with evidence that my family's claim was true. That we were children of Cambodian parents. (None of my other relatives were questioned.)

In the end we paid the hefty fee. Not just money but our dignity too. Incidents like these would continue for many years, and so the profound void I felt—the shame and loneliness—would persist.

The void had a silver lining though. Because I always felt out of place, with an immense desire to belong somewhere, I opened my heart to other cultures and saw beauty in them, primarily through the lens of food. Whatever cultural restaurants I could find, if I was welcomed, I latched on and embraced them. This is also reflected in the breads I bake, incorporating culinary elements from diverse cultures as respectfully as I can.

I think misunderstanding often results in misguided judgment. I misunderstood my parents' culture and distanced myself from it for the majority of my life, but after taking the time to educate myself I don't stray too far from my Cambodian heritage. It's now always the veiled centerpiece of my baking, no matter how unusual it gets.

11/21/2025

In my 11 years as a "professional" sourdough baker, the nastiest comment I ever received was... "You're selling poison." From a person who I had never met, said not with seething anger but a steely calm conviction. I was at my farmers market stall, even greeted her with a warm hello before her response left me slack jawed and speechless. I was also severely sleep deprived, awake for 24+ hours, working solo. I took pre-orders, made recipes, bought supplies, prepped, baked, cleaned, packaged, transported and organized my goods. Or at least I thought they were good.

Before I had the chance to formulate any words, the person slipped away as soon as a customer approached me. I slapped a grin across my face and chatted with the customer while my heart sank slowly into my chest.

It's been many years since that incident. For a long time I dwelled on it but now I use it as a story to entertain guests. And a motivator to improve my craft. Instead of avoiding unwarranted criticism, I now actively seek it—the most constructive that I can find. In my short time here in SLO, about 4 months, my breads have been critiqued by advanced home bakers, professional bakers, a quality assurance & food safety manager at a bakery, an established food writer, and of course food & beverage connoisseurs of all kinds. (No, not all of their feedback were positive. And that's OK!)

To the lovely people I've met so far in SLO, thank you. I carry your words, and I'm a better baker because of it.

P.S.

Pictured is my "CALIFORNIA HERITAGE" sourdough.

Featuring Heirloom White Sonora Wheat, Heirloom Blue Corn, and Red California Jasmine Rice. All freshly stone-milled/cooked, organic, and of course California-grown. Mildly tangy, slightly earthy and nutty balanced with the sweetness of Californian raw honey.

11/17/2025

In honor of National Native American Heritage Month, observed in November in the US, among several rituals I express my deepest gratitude and respect by baking "Autumn Harvest Cookies." Celebrating the flavors of the fall harvest, it's an adapted recipe from the James Beard Award-winning cookbook "The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen" by native American chef Sean Sherman and literary food writer Beth Dooley.

Features blueberry powder, nixtamalized blue corn flour (aka harina de maíz azul), pepitas, chopped pecans, toasted pecan butter, dark maple syrup, and cold-pressed sunflower seed oil. Naturally vegan, gluten-free, and delicious!

Shout out to the SLO Cookbook Club for providing the incentive to bake this wholesome dessert!

11/11/2025

San Francisco is famous for its distinctly tangy sourdough but... how did it start?

Deeply inspired by the nascent French bakers of the California Gold Rush (1848 - 1855), I created a recipe to reflect their hardships, skills, and resourcefulness: a rustic, tangy sourdough featuring freshly stone-milled Heirloom White Sonora Wheat, Heirloom Club Wheat, Heirloom Blue Corn, Heirloom Gazelle Rye, with French-Style "Type 80" Hard Red Spring Wheat Flour.

French Bakers of the California Gold Rush in 1849

On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. News spread around the world and then, in 1849 alone, approximately 90,000 American and foreign migrants (nicknamed "forty-niners") flooded into California. Thousands of these forty-niners arrived from France by ship, some of whom were skilled bread bakers. Rather than mine for gold, they chose to bake in boomtowns, most notably San Francisco and French mining towns in Sacramento Valley.

Flour Shortage

In the initial years of the Gold Rush, California imported significant amounts of wheat, primarily from Oregon (USA) and Chile in South America. Key factors for California's mass imports of wheat were: explosive population growth, severe labor shortage (e.g., farmers abandoning their fields to search for gold), lack of infrastructure to produce and transport supplies, and inflated prices for food staples.

Brief History of Each Grain (in context of the California Gold Rush in 1849)

🌾 White Sonora Wheat
When the Gold Rush began, California wasn't as agriculturally developed as Oregon where settlers had been growing wheat in the Willamette Valley for decades prior. Prompted by the demand in California, in 1849, about fifty ships entered the Willamette River to purchase grains and lumber at any price. Merchants subsequently shipped goods downriver from Portland to the Pacific and on to San Francisco.

Most of Oregon's flour exports to California during the Gold Rush consisted of simple, unbranded, and unstandardized flour. The flour was likely produced from a class of soft white winter wheat called "White Lammas," introduced to the Pacific Northwest in the 1820s by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Among the White Lammas-class heirloom wheats in the US, White Sonora is the most widely documented and commercially available variety.

🌾 Club Wheat
In the early years of the California Gold Rush, Chile was the only significant source of wheat on the Pacific Rim. The shipping route between Chile and San Francisco was already well-established, part of a Pacific coastal trade network that had been operating since the 1830s. In 1849, Chile exported 8,700 tons of grain, along with 6,900 tons of flour, to California. It's unclear how much of the grain was specifically wheat. Nonetheless, the Chilean club wheat became highly valued and fed the Gold Rush population in California.

🌽 Corn and Rye
Supply shortages were extremely frequent during the California Gold Rush, especially in the early years. Flour was often imported and expensive. In towns like San Francisco, merchants made fortunes by "mining the miners," selling food staples at massively inflated prices due to high demand and limited supply. Before the Gold Rush, the price for a pound of flour in California was about 1.5 cents. Following the start of the Gold Rush in 1848, the price soared to as high as $1.50 per pound, the equivalent of $63 per pound in today's dollars.

Overcoming these hardships, both French and other bakers would use a mix of imported flour and locally milled grains (such as corn and rye) to produce what they could.

🌾 Type 80 Wheat Flour (imitating 1800s bolted flour)
Wheat flour was "bolted" (sifted) in the US from the colonial era to the 1860s to produce a refined, whiter flour. To produce bolted flour, milled grain would pass through a "bolting cloth"—a fine mesh sieve made of materials like silk or wire. The result was a high-extraction flour, typically retaining between 75% and 85% of the original grain. This created a whiter flour but was still noticeably darker and more perishable than the refined white flour that's common today.

"Type 80" flour is popular in modern-day France, especially for traditional, whole grain, and rustic breads. The French "T-flour" system classifies flour based on its ash content (i.e., mineral residue after the flour is incinerated). T80 flour has an ash content of 0.80%. Higher numbers indicate less refinement, more bran and germ for darker, more nutritious flour. In contrast, lower numbers indicate a whiter, finer, and less nutritious flour. For example, T45 is a fine pastry flour, while T150 is a coarse, wholemeal flour.

11/08/2025

Before moving here to the Central Coast 3 months ago, I lived in Cambodia for 14 years. I sold sourdough breads to the American and French expat community at our local farmers market, for several years, and eventually opened a small bakery (which sadly closed because of the Covid pandemic). After doing wholesale for 6 years, I can honestly say that I despise it. Selling to faceless customers didn't feel right.

Before the wholesale operation I felt a deep connection to the community. I knew the names of my regulars. I knew the names of their children, and miraculously watched them grow. I knew their orders by heart. I knew their jobs, dreams and aspirations. And my heart ached when they moved away, or when they were sick and passed on... My heart still aches.

I've no shame to admit that I'm a sentimental baker.

I hope my family and I find our place here in the community at SLO. I'm not expecting a swift welcome or a massive following. Nor do I want that. It would just be an honor to one day know your name, and to serve you my breads.

P.S. I'd like to express my sincerest gratitude to the individuals I've gifted my breads to in SLO. It's a joy to meet wonderful people!

10/18/2025

A sourdough nobody asked for: 🌶️ CHAR-ROASTED JALAPEÑO & SMOKED JACK

Featuring ripe red jalapeño peppers, smoked jack, smoked paprika, raw honey, and freshly stone-milled Heirloom Hourani Durum Wheat. Slightly smoky, sweet and savory, complemented by a subtle tang and spicy kick.

I don't know what you'd eat this with but probably hearty soups and stews. Tomato bisque, chili con carne, clam chowder? Probably good as breakfast toast and grilled cheese sandwich.

Brief history of Hourani and Jack:

🌾 Hourani Durum Wheat
Hourani is a rare ancient grain, cultivated for thousands of years on the volcanic Houran Plateau in Jordan and Syria. The grain was lost for nearly two millennia until the seeds were rediscovered in the 1960s at the Masada Fortress in Judea, buried in 73 CE to protect them from the Roman siege.

In 2016, the Washington State University's Breadlab, a program focused on ancient and heirloom grains, received Hourani seeds from the USDA seed bank. Later in 2019, Breadlab provided a small amount of Hourani seeds to the nonprofit organization Honoré Farm and Mill in Northern California, initiating its cultivation in the US.

Today, some inhabitants of the Houran Plateau still grow Hourani. However, the seeds are mostly preserved in seed banks. In terms of commercial cultivation, Honoré Farm and Mill is one of the few known organizations in the world reviving Hourani.

🧀 Monterey Jack Cheese
Monterey Jack cheese, or simply "Jack," originated from Spanish missionaries in 18th-century California.

In the 19th century, several individuals contributed to the production of jack-pressed cheeses in Monterey, California. Notably, Doña Juana Cota de Boronda who sold door-to-door Queso del País ("country cheese" in Spanish) to support her family of 15 children and debilitated husband; and Swiss-Italian dairy farmer Domingo Pedrazzi who developed a cheese called "Pedrazzi’s jack cheese." In the 1880s, Scottish immigrant and notorious businessman David Jacks commercialized the cheese, initially marketed as "Jacks' Cheese" and later "Monterey Jack".

10/09/2025

Revising the "California Heritage" sourdough, featuring Heirloom White Sonora Wheat 🌾, Heirloom Blue Corn 🌽, and Red California Jasmine Rice 🍚. All freshly stone-milled/cooked, organic, and of course California-grown.

Some major adjustments:
- sourced a new, coarser blue cornmeal
- toasted the rice to increase nutty flavor
- reduced hydration (water) for better handling

Brief history of each grain:

🌾 White Sonora Wheat
White Sonora Wheat is considered to be the oldest wheat in North America, introduced by Spanish missionaries in the 1600s. It was widely grown across Mexico and reached California mission lands via El Camino Real (Spanish royal roads) by the 1700s. By the early 1800s, White Sonora was widely planted in California but steeply declined in the mid-20th century because of the development of higher-yielding wheat varieties, which nearly eliminated heritage grains including White Sonora.

🌽 Blue Corn
Blue corn in California is tied to the indigenous agriculture of the Southwest, as far back as 2500 BC, deeply rooted in the customs of the Pueblo peoples. While the origins of blue corn isn't in California, its historical cultivation and adoption by native peoples made it an important crop in the US.

🍚 Red California Jasmine Rice
Red California Jasmine Rice is a variety of aromatic brown rice developed by Lundberg Family Farms in Richvale, California. Harlan Lundberg, a family member, discovered red rice varieties in Brazil in the early 1970s. He returned to the US with the concept, developed new seeds from basmati rice and created the Red California Jasmine.

09/30/2025

In my hand I have something special, something precious. California-grown, organic, freshly stone-milled whole grain—and on the edge of extinction:

Heirloom Hourani Durum Wheat.

Hourani is a rare ancient grain, cultivated for thousands of years on the volcanic Houran Plateau in Jordan and Syria. The grain was lost for nearly two millennia until the seeds were rediscovered in the 1960s at the Masada Fortress in Judea, buried in 73 CE to protect them from the Roman siege.

In 2016, the Washington State University's Breadlab, a program focused on ancient and heirloom grains, received Hourani seeds from the USDA seed bank. Later in 2019, Breadlab provided a small amount of Hourani seeds to the nonprofit organization Honoré Farm and Mill in Northern California, initiating its cultivation in the US.

Today, some inhabitants of the Houran Plateau still grow Hourani. However, the seeds are mostly preserved in seed banks. In terms of commercial cultivation, Honoré Farm and Mill is one of the few known organizations in the world reviving Hourani.

Fun fact: the famous Michelin three-star restaurant The French Laundry sources freshly milled Hourani flour from Honoré Farm and Mill, specifically for their buttery brioche rolls served every evening.

09/24/2025

Introducing my latest recipe: 🍁 MAPLE O.R.B. (OATS, RYE, BARLEY)

Featuring freshly rolled & roasted Heirloom Naked Oats, freshly stone-milled Heirloom Tibetan Purple Barley and Heirloom Gazelle Spring Rye, with Grade A Dark Maple Syrup. Earthy and nutty. Slightly sweet, woody and floral. Mildly tangy.

Beyond standard wheat flour, historically, bread bakers in France used other grains like oats, barley, and rye, particularly in the Middle Ages. These coarser grains were consumed by common people, while fine wheat bread was a luxury for the wealthy. Over the centuries as wheat became more available and affordable, the use of oats and barley in French bread significantly declined.

Well, I'm bringing them back!

Brief history of each grain:

🌾 Naked Oats
Hulless or "naked" oats originated in China, cultivated for over 2,000 years for both animal feed and human consumption. For decades many researchers believed that naked oats were a variant of the European hulled oat. However, recent genomic studies since 2022 indicate that hulled oats and naked oats diverged around 51,000 years ago, and domesticated independently in Europe and China.

As early as the mid-16th century naked oats migrated from China to Europe, grown in England, Austria, and other countries. While hulled oats were introduced to the Americas in the 17th century, naked oats were not widely available in the US until the mid-19th century when they were exploited under deceptive names like "Bohemian oats." By the early 20th century, the cultivation of naked oats in the US declined and fell out of favor to the higher-yielding hulled oats.

🌾 Tibetan Purple Barley
Purple barley or "qingke" is an ancient barley variety, cultivated for over 3,500 years on the Tibetan Plateau. Adapted to the harsh, high-altitude environment, it became a staple food to Tibetans for millennia. In 1924, purple barley was first brought to the US from Tibet, then later stored in the USDA seed vault in Idaho—forgotten for nearly a century. Sometime before 2012, researchers at the Montana and Oregon State Universities took notice of the purple barley and reintroduced it to the public where it gained popularity among both farmers and health food enthusiasts.

🌾 Gazelle Spring Rye
Gazelle Spring Rye is a rye variety created by Dr. Frank Sosulski at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, developed in the mid-1960s to the 1970s and introduced to Canadian growers in 1974. As rye is almost universally winter-planted and harvested in the following summer, Gazelle was unusual—a spring-planted rye that thrived in cold soil. This characteristic made it attractive to US growers. Also contributing to its popularity in the US, artisan bakers, craft brewers, and distillers sought out Gazelle for its complex, earthy and floral flavors.

09/17/2025

MISSION
To connect our community to humanity's cultural past by providing exceptional sourdough breads with ancient, heritage, and heirloom grains.

VISION
To establish a wood-fired oven bakery that promotes culture, craftsmanship, and sustainability.

09/14/2025

The "California Heritage" sourdough loaf contains 3 California-grown, organic, freshly stone-milled whole grains:

- Heirloom White Sonora Wheat 🌾
- Heirloom Blue Corn 🌽
- and cooked Red California Jasmine Rice (aka Wehani Rice) 🍚

The recipe is still in development but the flavor is pretty stellar, in my opinion. Thin crust with a crumb that's light and airy, soft and moist. Mildly to moderately tangy, slightly earthy and nutty balanced with the sweetness of Californian raw honey.

Brief history of each grain:

🌾 White Sonora Wheat
White Sonora Wheat is considered to be the oldest wheat in North America, introduced by Spanish missionaries in the 1600s. It was widely grown across Mexico and reached California mission lands via El Camino Real (Spanish royal roads) by the 1700s. By the early 1800s, White Sonora was widely planted in California but steeply declined in the mid-20th century because of the development of higher-yielding wheat varieties, which nearly eliminated heritage grains including White Sonora.

🌽 Blue Corn
Blue corn in California is tied to the indigenous agriculture of the Southwest, as far back as 2500 BC, deeply rooted in the customs of the Pueblo peoples. While the origins of blue corn isn't in California, its historical cultivation and adoption by native peoples made it an important crop in the US.

🍚 Red California Jasmine Rice
Red California Jasmine Rice is a variety of aromatic brown rice developed by Lundberg Family Farms in Richvale, California. Harlan Lundberg, a family member, discovered red rice varieties in Brazil in the early 1970s. He returned to the US with the concept, developed new seeds from basmati rice and created the Red California Jasmine.

Khrust Bakery

12/04/2025

11/21/2025

11/17/2025

11/11/2025

11/08/2025

10/18/2025

10/09/2025

09/30/2025

09/24/2025

09/17/2025

09/14/2025

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